I'll Be Looking at the Moon
by misqueue
Summary: Blaine's surprised when Kurt texts him after his first date with Adam. It didn't go how Kurt expected. Set around 3x12 "Naked" and immediately following And I Breathe". Originally written for prompt #16 Pulse for klaineadvent2013. Part 16 of Scenes During the Break Up. Warnings for break up & infidelity related angst, background Kurt/Adam.


_No one is waiting up for Blaine when he gets home several minutes past his curfew. He heads straight to the shower and then to bed. In the dark he gropes for the end of his phone charger, to plug his phone in for the night. It blinks with a new text notification. Ten minutes old, it's from Kurt. Blaine hesitates before opening it._

 _"Are you awake?" it reads._

 _Blaine takes a deep, painless breath and then exhales all of it. He types back, "Yes."_

"Hi. :)"

That's Kurt's reply.

"Okay," Blaine says to the room. He stares at the text smiley; tries to discern its subtext. It's too simple to take at face value given it's been Kurt's first date with Adam. That Kurt's come home alone seems a reasonable assumption. The smiley, though—did it go well? Is he calling to gush over the wonderful perfect New York dream date he had with Adam? Doubtful Kurt would be so insensitive—or even comfortable—doing so.

Which means what? He wants to talk to Blaine because he's been in a romantic disposition tonight and feels nostalgic? Or does he just want to tell Blaine about the show he saw? Or? Is this how they work now, as friends?

He's overthinking it. A simple overture of friendliness shouldn't be this fraught between them, even tonight. Blaine keeps his reply as simple. He won't pretend to know things he doesn't. That's got him into enough trouble. "Hi. :) Did you want to call & talk?"

"I don't want to wake Rachel. Is texting OK?"

"Ofc," Blaine types, sends, and then—before he has a chance to censor himself-types the most obvious question to get it out of the way, "How was your date?" He makes himself smile through it, even though Kurt can't see him.

A few minutes pass, and Blaine looks at the photos on his nightstand. Kurt with him, Kurt alone: Kurt looking back at him, smiling, in love. _In love with him_. In this room, once, in love together. Blaine exhales the tension that wants to gather behind his eyes. This bed is his own making.

And thinking on that trite-but-true old metaphor, the particular cruelty of his own self-inflicted heartbreak, Blaine doesn't want to continue this conversation in his bedroom, with the good memories of them staring him down in the bed in which they made love, so he gets up. Goes back downstairs, and into the music room. Memories of Kurt linger here too-some he wishes to avoid for now-but he has many more memories of other times. Being on his own, with music: his own audience and company. Practicing and learning and feeling proud.

Enough light comes in the windows, he doesn't bother with a lamp. Sits at the piano, with his quiet phone. The fallboard covers the keys. Blaine resists raising it to distract his hands and mind; instead he types another tet to Kurt. "You don't have to answer." Blaine sends. "I'm sorry if that was inappropriate."

Kurt's reply comes shortly after that. "It's fine, I texted you first." And then after another handful of seconds: "I was overdressed."

Blaine frowns, fidgets with his phone. He's unsure what to make of that. "Was it a problem? Being overdressed?"

"Dinner and a show turned out to be Cajun pizza and an improv club."

"That sounds fun?"

"It was fun, but not what I dressed for."

"What did you wear?"

"I'll show you," Kurt replies.

After a couple minutes, Blaine gets a photo: Kurt in front of his mirror. The lighting's warm and bright enough Blaine can appreciate the striking jacket Kurt wears. It's got a bold black and white tessellating pattern that resembles stained glass windows or elaborate tile work. The cut of the jacket is perfection on Kurt, trim and classic with neat pagoda shoulders. Kurt's wearing it with black tuxedo trousers, a white shirt, and a black bow tie with a small silver chain.

"Wow. That's from the new McQueen collection, right?" Blaine types.

"Yes! Isabelle let me borrow it. Amazing, right? I wish I could show you the detail better. I'm in love with this jacket, I swear."

"It's gorgeous," Blaine replies, because Kurt is. "You look incredible, Kurt. I love your bow tie."

"Thank you."

Blaine smiles (so he sends a smiley, ":D" ), and he wonders if Kurt's smiling too. He hopes he is. He loves Kurt's smile when he gets a well deserved compliment on his appearance.

"How's my Dad been this week?" Kurt sends after a while. "He never wants to tell me much about his treatments."

 _Is that why you texted me tonight? To ask about your Dad?_ Blaine types, but he stares at the message and doesn't send it. Without conversational tone, it may come off as bitter or confrontational, and he's neither. He just wants to know why. He's deleting it when Kurt's next text arrives.

"I sent some tea that's meant to help with his energy. Do you know if he's drinking it?"

"I'll ask him next time I see him." Blaine says, and then sends also, "He's doing well though. I saw him earlier tonight and he was in a great mood."

"Thank you, Blaine."

"You're welcome," Blaine replies, because he can't think of anything else that would be better in the moment. He can't tell Kurt that he's more than happy to do this, that he doesn't require Kurt's thanks. It's a promise he's keeping, and he loves Kurt's family. But he doesn't want Kurt to think he's doing any of this to ply Kurt's heart for forgiveness.

"So how's your evening been?" Kurt sends.

 _I went to Scandals and realized I'm still in love with you and I'm okay with that_ , is what Blaine wants to type. Instead he sends, "It was fine." But looking at the words on his screen while waiting for Kurt's reply, Blaine frowns. It's too perfunctory and dismissive, and Kurt must want to keep talking or he would've said good night by now. His date was disappointing, that much seems safe to assume. So Blaine tries to be a little bit braver. "I was thinking about you and hoping you had a good time with Adam."

It's a while before Blaine gets a response: "I did." He wonders what other options Kurt may've typed and discarded.

"Why does it feel like there's a 'but' there?" Blaine sends.

"I don't know," Kurt replies, and Blaine can imagine his sigh of frustration. "I'm sorry if this is awkward. I know we talked about talking about this stuff, but actually talking about it?"

Blaine laughs despite himself. "It's okay. I care about you more than this is awkward. We can talk if it helps."

"Okay," Kurt replies, but that's all Blaine gets.

"So your date wasn't what you expected," Blaine says. "But you had a good time?"

"Yes. I had a great time."

"Do you want to see him again?"

"I think so."

"But?"

"But seriously, I don't know if I'm feeling the way I'm supposed to be feeling. I keep comparing it to how I felt about you when we were starting out, and it's different. I don't know if it's supposed to be or what it means that it is."

"I wouldn't worry about supposed to. You feel how you feel." Blaine replies, hopes that doesn't sound weirdly passive aggressive or anything.

"Maybe."

Blaine stares at Kurt's 'maybe' and tries his best to channel friendship and support and wisdom of some kind without getting himself too hopelessly tangled up in his own heart. "We knew each other for months before we started dating. We were already friends."

"True. I don't know him very well yet. Maybe I'm expecting too much too soon."

Blaine isn't sure how to advise Kurt, how much of whatever advice he might give would come from his own abiding desire for reconciliation. He doesn't want to sabotage Kurt, but nor does he want to overcompensate and give poor or insincere advice. "It's okay to take it slow," Blaine types. "We did."

"Yeah."

Blaine holds his phone, and he knows he can't stop the emotion that wells up in response to the memories that rouse, so he doesn't try. "Are you okay?" he asks.

"I don't know. After having my first date in NY not be what I'd dreamed of, I've been thinking."

"About?" Blaine prompts.

"About how I always do this."

Confused, Blaine asks, "Always do what?"

"Make it all up in my head. I had such a clear idea of how I wanted tonight to be. And it was nothing like it, and I was actually mad about that for a little while. Which wasn't fair to Adam. It made me wonder if I'd done the same thing to you."

Blaine frowns, types, and sends, "I don't understand."

It's a while before he gets Kurt's reply: "After you told me you cheated on me. I didn't know who you were, because my Blaine would never have done that. You looked the same, but you were a stranger."

Blaine presses his lips together and tips his head back. His vision blurs and he swallows hard. More reminders of things he can't fix. His phone vibrates with another text: "When you came at Christmas, I recognized you again, but you still seemed different. You were you, but I saw you differently."

"Kurt," Blaine says out loud. These are things they need to talk about maybe, but he doesn't know how. And some things are too hard to hear from Kurt, even though he knows they're true, knows the pain of them is his own doing, knows Kurt isn't saying things to hurt him or punish him, but just because Kurt needs to say them. Or wants Blaine to know. The least he can do is listen.

"Are you still there?" Kurt asks.

"I'm still here."

"On the way home on the train, I realized that maybe I'd made up a version of you in my head and a version of our relationship that weren't real? I was so in love with the idea of you that I hadn't really looked at you and seen you the way I should have. I thought I had, but, maybe not."

"Oh, Kurt," Blaine whispers to himself. He can't stop the tears this time, doesn't try. Wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his robe, and reads the next text.

"Instead I was caught in this fantasy of having found my fairy tale prince and daydreaming all our happily ever afters. But reality was different, you were different, and I maybe I didn't see that."

Kurt's next text comes before Blaine can even start thinking about starting a reply. Kurt must be typing furiously, to get out the whole thought. Blaine sniffs wetly, and reads: "Maybe I was so in love with the idea of being in love instead of being in love with you the way I should have been. Maybe I don't really know you as well as I thought I did. Maybe I never really knew you at all."

It's not a good conversation for texts. But Blaine stares at Kurt's words, realizes what it must have taken Kurt to write all of it tonight. Knows he needs to say the right thing, but he has no idea what that is. He does his best. "I wanted to be your fairy tale prince. I wanted those happy endings with you, Kurt. I'm the one who fucked it up, not you."

"But if I truly knew you then I would've understood you better. I would've been a better boyfriend and you wouldn't have done it."

"What happened isn't your fault," Blaine types, robotically. He can't let himself feel all of this.

"Are you really telling me that there's nothing I could have done differently that would've made you not want to cheat on me?"

"I don't know," Blaine says. "I can't know that, and there's no point wondering about how things could've been when it's done. I don't think I can do this with you right now, Kurt. I'm sorry."

No reply from Kurt.

"Okay?" Blaine asks.

"Okay," Kurt replies. Follows up with a longer text. "I still miss you," Kurt sends. "So much sometimes. I missed you a lot tonight, and I wasn't supposed to be thinking about you at all. I want to give this thing with Adam a chance, because I really like him and he likes me. But I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe it's too soon and this is doomed from the start. I don't want to make the same mistakes."

"I miss you too," Blaine replies, grateful that they're not actually on the phone, so he can choose not to reply to everything Kurt's text is laden with. "I was thinking about you tonight too. It's going to happen, that we think about each other like this."

"Maybe I shouldn't have said all of this to you tonight."

"It's okay to say it if it's how you feel."

"It is how I feel, but I don't know that it's okay to say it all to you. I don't know if it's fair. I don't like not knowing how to talk to you about things. I miss talking to you though."

"Me too. I'm sorry this is hard."

"I know." And then. "Was it wrong for me to text you tonight? Are *you* okay?"

"I'm okay," Blaine says. For some values of 'okay' it's true. Hard though it is, Kurt did text and they are talking. It's nice-and it reminds Blaine, not in the specific, but in some ineffable spirit of human intimacy, of the midnight text conversations they had back before Kurt transferred to Dalton.

"Okay, then so am I," Kurt sends and Blaine knows, without seeing, that Kurt's smiling too.

There's a long gap of no communication then. Blaine scrolls back up to the photograph of Kurt. His face is partially blocked by his phone; Blaine can only see the edge of his mouth and one eye. But it's enough. "I just hope you got a decent compliment on that outfit tonight," Blaine writes.

Kurt replies, "I did get one. Eventually. :)"

"So is it a good evening after all?"

"It is," Kurt sends, and adds, "I'm going to go to bed now. It's late. Thanks for talking to me."

"Anytime. I mean it."

"I'll call you sometime when it's not so late?"

"Sure," Blaine types. Then, "Good night, Kurt. Sleep well."


End file.
